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This volume assembles in one place the work of scholars who are making key contributions to a new approach to the United Nations, and to global organizations and international law more generally. Anthropology has in recent years taken on global organizations as a legitimate source of its subject matter. The research that is being done in this field gives a human face to these world-reforming institutions. Palaces of Hope demonstrates that these institutions are not monolithic or uniform, even though loosely connected by a common organizational network. They vary above all in their powers and forms of public engagement. Yet there are common threads that run through the studies included here: the actions of global institutions in practice, everyday forms of hope and their frustration, and the will to improve confronted with the realities of nationalism, neoliberalism, and the structures of international power.

Will appeal to those interested in how the UN and related agencies work in practice

Includes an introduction that offers an overview of the ethnography of organizations, so readers will be able to grasp the new approach to global organizations

Demonstrates the potential of an ethnographic approach to the anthropology of law, suggesting alternative ways to bridge the different disciplines in the study of law

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Product details

Date Published: January 2017

format: Hardback

isbn: 9781107127494

length: 350pages

dimensions: 229 x 152 x 21 mm

weight: 0.64kg

availability: Available

Table of Contents

1. Introduction Ronald Niezen and Maria Sapignoli 2. Heart of darkness: an exploration of the WTO Marc Abélès 3. Horseshoe and catwalk: power, complexity and consensus-making in the United Nations Security Council Niels Nagelhus Schia 4. A kaleidoscopic institutional form: expertise and transformation in the permanent forum on indigenous issues Maria Sapignoli 5. The 'public' character of the Universal Periodic Review: contested concept and methodological challenge Jane K. Cowan and Julie Billaud 6. Meeting 'the world' at the Palais Wilson: embodied universalism at the UN Human Rights Committee Miia Halme-Tuomisaari 7. Expertise and quantification in global institutions Sally Engle Merry 8. From boardrooms to field programs: humanitarianism and international development in Southern Africa Robert K. Hitchcock 9. Global village courts: international organizations and the bureaucratization of rural justice systems in the Global South Tobias Berger 10. Contrasting values of forests and ice in the making of a global climate agreement Noor Johnson and David Rojas 11. The best of the best: positing, measuring and sensing value in the UNESCO World Heritage Arena Christoph Brumann 12. Propaganda on trial: structural fragility and the epistemology of international legal institutions Richard Ashby Wilson 13. The anthropology by organizations: legal knowledge and the UN's ethnological imagination Ronald Niezen Index.

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Editors

Ronald Niezen, McGill University, MontréalRonald Niezen holds the Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the Faculty of Law and the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, Montréal. His work on public justice outreach includes the study of truth and reconciliation commissions, online lobbying, and human rights movements. These areas of study have involved research in a variety of forums, including the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the World Health Organization, and the Arctic Council. His books include The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Difference (2003), Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law (Cambridge, 2010), and Truth and Indignation: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (2013).

Maria Sapignoli, Max Planck Institute for Social AnthropologyMaria Sapignoli is a Research Fellow in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. She has done research on legal activism, indigenous rights, and social movements. These areas of study have involved work in a variety of global organizations, including the United Nations Secretariat Headquarters, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the International Labour Organization's Training Centre. Some of her research involves San activism in southern Africa on issues related to indigenous peoples' rights and claims to land and resources in the context of resettlement. She is the author of several articles and book chapters on indigenous peoples in southern Africa, most recently in Anthropological Forum (2015) and the Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Peoples' Rights (2016).

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